Commentary: U.S.-Mexico border-industrial complex on verge of excess

Texas on the Potomac regularly shares with you the work of some of Hearst Newspapers’ best columnists. Today, we are pleased to share with you this commentary by San Antonio Express-News columnist O. Ricardo Pimentel.

The notion has been around as long as there have been wars. It’s this suspicion that wars of choice occur and reoccur not so much because we profit in noble purpose attained but in dollars or the opportunity to make them.

There used to be a pejorative for that — profiteering. This applied to citizens cheating a government at war. But it also applied to anyone profiting excessively by national conflict.

O. Ricardo Pimentel (San Antonio Express-News)

This comes to mind as Congress, via one subcommittee, instructs the Pentagon not to close bases, though the Pentagon requests closures. And it comes to mind because of another kind of war footing — “security” at the U.S./Mexico border in the context of immigration reform.

Once upon at time, we were warned ominously of the military-industrial complex. We hear little of that these days. Defense of the realm — and other “strategic” sites offshore — is now thought to be something of a full-time and never-ending superpower pursuit.

So, “excess” might reasonably apply to U.S. military expenditures of $682 billion, roughly $300 billion more than the combined spending of the others in the top five spenders. And “excess” might also apply to what we’ve been spending at the U.S./Mexico border.

That was about $18 billion in fiscal year 2012. A report by the Migration Policy Center earlier this year explained that this was 24 percent more than the total spending for other federal law enforcement agencies. And that’s before the price for more border security provisions in reform gets assessed.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn had a proposal to hire 10,000 more agents at the border and achieve “100 percent situational awareness” at the border. It also contained unacceptable triggers for citizenship. But even without this amendment, the price tag of the bill was an additional $4.5 billion for the border. On Thursday, a compromise on border security emerged that would nearly double the number of agents — now numbering 21,000 — and build 700 miles of fence. The agents alone come at an estimated cost of $30 billion.

I understand; politics — making it safe for Republicans to vote for this — are at play. This occurs, however, though changing economic, birthrate and other factors continue to mean diminished migrant flows from Mexico.

Let’s not fool ourselves. Some specific folks will gain monetarily by this push. A New York Times article on June 6 by Eric Lipton described the hunger with which federal defense contractors are now viewing this border buildup. Meanwhile, the number of Border Patrol agents has already doubled since 2005.

Others have decried the movement toward immigrant detention facilities built and operated by private concerns as another example of a growing border-industrial complex. And there is, of course, our war on drugs, which amounts to a full-time employment act for law enforcement.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department, under budget pressure, foresees fewer folks in uniform. That usually means fewer bases. Not to a Senate readiness subcommittee, however. It recently told the military “no” to any new round of base closings.

This is good news for communities that depend on military bases, much as Military City USA (San Antonio) does. But shouldn’t bases have to make the case that they are vital to defense? Isn’t that the only true measure for a base’s continued existence?

Texas and other border states now stand to benefit on two fronts; from that “no” to a Pentagon that says it has too many bases and to a looming “yes” on trying to craft an impregnable border that is, arguably, secure enough.